Wednesday 1 August 2012 11.45 EDT
First published on Wednesday 1 August 2012 11.45 EDT

As a mother of a daughter competing in this Olympics for Team GB in the gymnastics, you are watching from the seats with a combination of huge pride and absolute agony. Your heart is in your mouth. Adrenaline rushes through your body and you can't do anything about it. You've watched the routine on the bars or the beam hundreds of times. You've seen her do it perfectly and seen her mistakes.

I watch Hannah with my husband Mike, our other daughter, Sophie, 23, who is a gymnastic coach, and our son. We support each other. Tell each other she'll be fine. We've been sitting together and holding hands. Before the event her coach will tell Hannah, "Do what you do in the gym. It's about taking part as much as winning." It helps us too. But when it's finally her turn to perform your heart is thumping. You go through each and every move she is doing with her in your head, but you are also shouting out things you'd say in the gym like "tight" and "push", and as she comes up on the bars you shout "over", then "wait" and finally "catch" as she goes over the bars. You know she can't hear you as it's very noisy and you're a long way away, but shouting helps us to get out all that nervous energy.

There was a time when I couldn't watch Hannah up on the beam. It's only four inches wide. It's nerve-racking. The tiniest fraction of error and you can fall off doing an otherwise perfect routine. In qualification, Hannah fell off. I knew before she fell that she was going to because after a difficult move her foot wasn't quite in line and so her balance was off and she couldn't complete the next move without coming off. Your heart just plummets. But it is the mark of an athlete how they recover and cope with disappointment. She got the highest score she has ever got in the vault. A huge triumph after that small mistake.

Yesterday, it was the team finals in which the girls came fifth, their best result since 1928. Tomorrow she is one of two Team GB members in the all-round final. Today we've seen her for an hour in the morning in the nearest and dearest lounge in Team GB House, which is presented by Olympic sponsor, P&G to provide support to family and friends of athletes during the London 2012 Games. Now we won't see Hannah until after the competition. We won't ring or text her. We leave her to focus and we're going off to see something else to take our minds off it.

She will do all four pieces: floor, beams, bars and vault. The competition is around two hours long. I don't nip out in between her performances. Once I'm in my seat I can't move.

You are absolutely ragged by the end because of that heightened adrenaline-fulled feeling. If they do well the head of British gymnastics tries to get you to see them and give them a hug and congratulate them. But access to the athletes is very limited during competitions.

Hannah has been competing as a gymnast since she was six years old. The first few competitions weren't quite so nerve-racking, but then again when they are young you worry about them. I wondered then if watching gets easier. The answer is no, it gets much worse because expectations become much greater.

She understands the agony of what we will be going through. In this very stadium [North Greenwich Arena] in 2009 she wasn't able to compete with Team GB at the World Championships because she'd just had surgery on her wrist, so she watched her team-mates with us up in the seats. She said it was a horrible experience. She'd never been so nervous in her life because you have no control over what is going to happen. When you're competing, she says, you're a bit nervous but you are doing something you know how to do.

I feel Hannah is yet to give her best performance at these Olympics. It would be a dream come true if she does that tomorrow. We'll be with her all the way.